FTC to Block Microsoft-Activision Merger
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced its intention to block Microsoft from acquiring video game developer Activision Blizzard. Public Citizen and its allies called for an investigation of the merger earlier this year. Matt Kent, competition policy advocate for Public Citizen, released the following statement:
“Today’s action is of incredible importance in ensuring fair and open competition in gaming and across the larger digital economy. The FTC is showing, once again, that it is serious about enforcing the law, reversing corporate concentration, and taking on the tough cases.
“The proposed deal raises too many red flags to proceed, especially considering that Microsoft is already operating in several concentrated sectors of the economy including consumer electronics, cloud computing, software development, hardware development, internet search, social networking, virtual reality, and video gaming.
“This deal should be stopped. If allowed to purchase a key video game developer like Activision, Microsoft would be positioned to dominate gaming into the future and unfairly disadvantage other market participants.”